


Real Love

by novelogical (writingmonsters)



Category: Burnt (2015)
Genre: Adam and Tony are Anti-Valentine's Day, Blindfolds, Brief Appearances by the Kitchen Crew, But Still Manage to be Gross and Romantic, Kissing, M/M, food is love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-13
Updated: 2019-02-13
Packaged: 2019-10-27 16:40:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17770430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writingmonsters/pseuds/novelogical
Summary: “Seriously?” And Max sounds far more surprised by this revelation than he should be. “You’re not doing anything? I mean, you I understand, but I woulda thought Tony…”“Tony what?”Max shrugs. “I dunno, just seems like he’s the romantic type. You know?”And Adam does know.Tony is the type who really believes in true love, who has managed to make Adam believe in true love. He is sweet. Grumpy in the mornings and endlessly thoughtful and more and more affectionate the longer they are together. And they are not going to do anything for Valentine’s Day, but that does not mean that they are not going to celebrate.





	Real Love

**Author's Note:**

  * For [misanthropiclycanthrope](https://archiveofourown.org/users/misanthropiclycanthrope/gifts).



> For Jake, as always. <3  
> Alles Liebe zum Valentinstag!

_ “The real lover is the man who can thrill you by kissing your forehead or smiling into your eyes or just staring into space.” -- Marilyn Monroe _

It’s terrible.

The Langham has been swathed in red and pink; garlands of hearts and bouquets of velvety roses that make Tony’s skin crawl. This time of year has always set his teeth on edge -- Valentine’s Day.

He is glued to his phone all week, fielding booking requests, last minute arrangements for romantic dinners at the three star Michelin restaurant. Dinner service becomes a unique form of torture; couples fawning over one another, sappy and overly-demonstrative of just how  _ in love _ they all are, with not a brain cell to be found left among any of them.

And it’s a whole week of this nonsense. Somehow, Valentine’s Day has encroached onto the rest of the week and Tony has to endure an entire seven days of love songs, hearts, absurd public demonstrations of affection, and last-minute couples afraid of spending the holiday alone. It’s unbearable.

“It is a stupid holiday,” Tony professes in the early hours, when they are still wrapped up together in their warm bed sheets. “Designed to make lonely people feel miserable and those in relationships to feel inadequate unless they perform some big gesture to prove their love.”

In Tony’s mind, there should be no such thing as one specific day devoted to declaring love -- people in love should be celebrating it every day. After all, proper love is hard enough to come by.

Adam, trailing his fingers through Tony’s absurd bedhead, kisses him lightly -- inclined to agree. “You’re the last of your kind, Tony,” he teases. “A true romantic.” They have been together for almost a year now, and Adam doesn’t know how it is possible, but he finds himself loving Tony more every day. “I take it that means you definitely don’t want candy hearts that taste like chalk and a bouquet of roses?”

It’s a stupid holiday, but he’d still do it if Tony asked.

“You try it and you will be sleeping on the couch for a week,” Tony threatens. There is no bite in his words, though, only an amused smile. “No Valentines.”

“No Valentines,” Adam agrees.

In the Langham kitchen, he wishes the rest of London had gotten the memo.

Everything is heart-shaped and cutesy and there have been no less than seven requests for Adam to write cheesy messages on the cheesecake plates with chocolate sauce.  _ Be Mine _ and  _ Happy Valentine’s Day _ and  _ I Love You, Bunny _ . Ugh.

Tony does not look much happier when he leans against the pass in a spare moment, exhausted and irate, letting his managerial mask slip for just a minute. Adam pauses at the pass to press a quick kiss to his cheek.

“How are we doing in here?” 

And Adam rolls his eyes, throws his head back and lets out a long groan. “If I see another heart-shaped anything I’m gonna scream.”

“You and me both,” Tony concedes with a shrug. “But is good for business.”

“It’s schmaltzy, sentimental crap is what it is.” Adam draws another strawberry-sauce heart on a dessert plate.

“Just one day more and then it is over,” Tony reassures him with a sympathetic pat on the shoulder. And, scooping up the plates, he steels himself to plunge back into the dining room among the excessively sentimental, affectionate diners.

The entire afternoon, David has not stopped talking about his Valentine’s Day plans.

“I’m makin’ vodka cream pasta for Sara and then I’m taking her ice skating for a surprise.” He beams, thrilled with himself. “I’ve never been skating before, but she always talks about it -- watchin’ the figure skaters on the Olympics and skating as a kid -- so I don’t mind busting my arse a few times. What about you, Helene? Got any plans?”

Cheerfully single and having proclaimed her intent to stay that way many times, Helene, prods at the vegetables being sauteed. “Lily’s sleeping over at a friend’s, so it’ll just be me, a bottle of wine, and the new season of  _ Made in Chelsea _ .”

Max snorts. “Happy Valentine’s Day to you, huh?”

Helene jabs her spatula at him with a wink.

“What about you, Chef?” David weaves his way between the stations to appear at Adam’s elbow with the pan of scallops done to perfection. Just the way Adam has trained him. “You and Tony doing anything for Valentine’s Day tomorrow?”

Scooping up a spoonful of scallops, Adam says with great satisfaction “not a damn thing.”

“Seriously?” And Max sounds far more surprised by this revelation than he should be. “You’re not doing anything? I mean, you I understand, but I woulda thought Tony…”

“ _ Tony _ what?”

Max shrugs. “I dunno, just seems like he’s the romantic type. You know?”

And Adam does know. 

Tony is the type who really believes in true love, who has managed to make  _ Adam  _ believe in true love. He is sweet. Grumpy in the mornings and endlessly thoughtful and more and more affectionate the longer they are together. And they are not going to do anything for Valentine’s Day, but that does not mean that they are not going to celebrate.

Which is why Adam is prepared.

They are outside the shared flat and Tony is fumbling around in his coat for the key when Adam slips his arms around his waist, rests his chin on Tony’s slim shoulder and murmurs “got a surprise for you.”

“Oh, no.” Tony twists in his arms, startled, frowning fiercely. “No, Adam, you said you weren't going to -- You promised...”

“Valentine’s Day is tomorrow,” Adam reminds him, pleased with himself as he sways side-to-side with Tony fitting so comfortably in the circle of his arms. “And we're not celebrating some shitty Hallmark holiday.”

“But --”

“No buts.” Adam shushes him fondly, reaching around Tony to unlock their door. “It’s Anti-Valentine's Day. You know that I’m completely fucking crazy about you, I know that you love me -- we don't need to do flowers and shitty candy and fucking  _ I love you _ ’s written in chocolate sauce to show other people how in love we are.” And he circles Tony, plants himself in the open doorway with his hands on Tony’s shoulders. 

And he loves the way Tony softens -- the way he tilts his head with his ochre eyes all warm and shining. “Anti-Valentine’s Day,” he tests the idea, turning it over in his mind, on his tongue. “Okay.”

Delighted, Adam takes him by the hands, draws Tony into the flat, through the shared space into the bedroom.  _ Their _ bedroom.

There are no rose petals scattered on the bed, no candles or bouquets of flowers. It is just the two of them, the way it supposed to be.

Adam kisses him sweetly, his hands finding the perfect Windsor knot at the base of Tony’s throat, loosening his tie. The deep blue silk slithers from his collar and Adam holds it up, taut between his hands. “This okay?”

There is a brief shine of anxiety in Tony’s eyes and then, swallowing hard, he nods. Forever willing to trust Adam Jones. “Yes.”

Adam  _ adores  _ him.

He wraps the blindfold around Tony’s eyes, secures the knot at the back of his skull. And Tony’s breath catches, his heartbeat fluttering high and fast in the hollow of his chest. He stands up straighter under Adam’s ministrations, catches his bottom lip between his teeth.

And there are a million thoughts that swirl through his mind, dispersing across the dark canvas of the blindfold. Sex and Adam’s hands coaxing his belt through the loops and Adam tying him up, fucking him hard, pressing him down into the mattress. 

Adam undresses him slow and careful, savoring every gasp, every involuntary shiver when he touches Tony, calloused fingertips ghosting over velvet skin as Adam peels him down to his boxers, scattering kisses along the way.

“Still okay?” Adam strokes his cheek, Tony’s breath trembling and humid against his knuckles.

Tony nods. “Still okay.”

“Lift your arms up for me?”

And the last thing Tony expects is to be coaxed into one of Adam’s too-big, worn soft t-shirts; the ones that Tony is always stealing, wearing to sleep, wandering through the flat in the mornings with naked, skinny legs and a tantalizing strip of collarbone bared.

Adam watches the way the blindfold shifts as Tony frowns, soft and confused. “Adam, what --?”

“Trust me.” And Tony does. Adam guides him back, presses him down onto the edge of the bed when his calves hit the mattress. “I'll be right back -- no peeking.”

Another kiss, firm and fond against Tony’s lips, and he is gone.

The kitchen is Adam’s space, even in their comfortable little flat, and he is immeasurably grateful that Tony had ceded the space the moment they moved in, that he has not opened the freezer to find the evidence of Adam’s machinations.

A dozen fat, red strawberries and slices of banana dipped in white chocolate and wonderfully bitter dark chocolate, decorated in swirls and delicate sugar crystals. He arranges them on the serving plate as carefully as if Michelin were breathing down his neck, laying out a perfect smiley face in lieu of another goddamn heart.

Tony is right where he left him, perched on the edge of the bed in Adam’s washed-thin Johnny Cash t-shirt, still blindfolded, twisting his long fingers in his lap.

Adam wants to savor every inch of him.

He leaves the plate on the nightstand, insinuating himself between Tony’s thighs, pressing him flat across the mattress. And crawls his way up Tony’s front, showering him with kisses -- leaves bruises along the softness of his inner thighs, pushes up the t-shirt to nip at his taut belly, the sweetness of his mouth, his eyelids, the tip of his nose. “Hey, gorgeous.”

“Adam…” Tony squirms beneath him, his slender hands roaming Adam’s chest, the span of his back. His voice quavers.

“Still okay?” And Adam kisses the furrow in Tony’s brow, sits back on his heels to reach for the plate.

“Still okay,” Tony promises, beaming. Eager.

What has Adam planned?

Grinning, Adam takes one of the strawberries, traces it along Tony’s bottom lip. “Taste.” And Tony, ever obliging, parts his lips, plays the familiar taste-testing game.

“White chocolate.”

He tongues a bit of the sweetness from his bottom lip, lovely and still shy beneath the weight of Adam's undivided attention.

“You sure about that?” He is right, of course, but Adam loves to tease. “Might need a second opinion.” And he swoops in to kiss Tony again, tasting berry and chocolate and Tony Balerdi --  _ his _ Tony -- exploring the welcome warmth of his mouth and the way Tony gasps against him. “Yeah,” he hums into the barest inch of space between them, inordinately pleased with himself. “Definitely white chocolate.”

Adam slides the blindfold up with gentle fingers and Tony is blinking up at him, tousled and bright-eyed. He stretches his neck, strains to kiss the corner of Adam’s mouth.

“I told you, Valentine's Day is a load of pre-packaged, doily-edged crap,” Adam rumbles, slipping his arms around Tony, rolling them over on the mattress. “And I know you hate it, and I hate it too. It’s a stupid fucking holiday.” And suddenly he is serious, lying side-by-side with Tony’s elbow digging into his ribs and his chin on Adam’s chest. “But it's not Valentine's Day yet, and I want to be gross and romantic with you tonight.” 

Tony finds Adam’s hand, draws it to his lips to kiss his fingertips. So much intensity in those electric blue eyes… “If I did not know better,” he teases gently “I might think you are getting sentimental, Adam.”

“I hardly get to spend time with you anymore,” Adam grouses, shifting back against the headboard. “The Langham doesn’t count -- that’s work. Not us.” He has a point, there have been reviews in the papers recently that have brought them even more business; an endless stream of diners and dinner services, and Tony has been wrapped up in training new staff, in the daily chaos of the hotel, the restaurant. “We’re either in the restaurant or we’re stumbling back here just long enough to sleep before we do it all over again tomorrow. And, that was fine when my whole world could be boiled down to a bed and a kitchen, but not so much anymore.”

He  _ misses _ Tony. Misses these quiet, tender moments together when the world requires nothing more than that they hold one another close.

“And why is that?” 

Tony knows, of course he knows -- he is only teasing Adam, but Adam knows him. Knows how much Tony has always needed to hear the words. “Well, now there’s someone  _ in _ my bed, in my kitchen, who’s just a bit more interesting.”  _ I love you. _

“Just a bit?” Tony nearly glows with the brilliance of the smile the spreads across his face, all mischief and delight.

“Tiny,  _ tiny  _ bit.” Adam pinches his fingers together, scrunches up his face.

Tony laughs, and Adam is certain that it is the most beautiful sound in the world. “Well, I suppose that maybe you are the littlest bit interesting yourself.”  _ I love you, too _ .

“Gee,” Adam chuckles. “I’m honored.”

“Happy Anti-Valentine’s Day,  _ amado _ .” Smiling, soft-eyed, Tony strokes his fingers through Adam’s short, thick hair.

Adam buries his face in the juncture of Tony’s neck and shoulder, breathes him in. “Happy Anti-Valentine’s Day.”


End file.
